October 04, 2008

UPDATED: JJ Escapes Torturers, Then Vanquishes Venus.

Oh to be JJ. She pulled a Sydney Bristow today, enduring immense tortuous pain before emerging victorious and sassy.

The 23-year-old Serb needed injections to numb the pain from a
toe-nail she split in Friday's quarter-final win over Vera Zvonareva.

"When I saw the needles they were going to use ten minutes before the game started, I went white - I hate needles.

"I
was screaming when the doctor put the needle in and I had to hold onto
one of the physios, but I had to do it to get through the game."

She came back to beat Venus, 67 75 62. She looks well on her way to getting her third title of the year and cementing her place as the year-end #1. She'll play Nads in the final tomorrow.

But, really, what's up with Venus? Check out this stat: JJ saved 14 of 16 break points. Now normally, standing alone, I would say this is more credit to JJ than a knock on Venus. But taking that stat as well as her USO performance against Serena into account (where she had numerous break and set points that she failed to convert) it does make me wonder. Has Venus lost that killer instinct?

UPDATED:

So I've just watched the match and boy, I didn't realize all the tense subplots. From what I could tell, here's the rundown:

During a changeover during the tiebreak, neither Venus or JJ gave way and we almost had another Spirlea incident.

Venus was visibly annoyed by the "coaching" that was going on between JJ and Ricardo Sanchez.

Sanchez was visibly timing Venus in between serves with a stopwatch.

JJ complained to the tournament director after the second set about Venus taking too much time between points.

Sanchez complained to the tournament director too.

Up 5-2 in the third, JJ takes an MTO for her toe before Venus' serve.

Both the US commentators and the Eurosport commentators were giving JJ and Ricardo shit for what was going on. I personally don't really care about what JJ did. It's annoying, but whatever, she has the right to complain about whatever she wants. I just roll my eyes.

But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical for JJ to be complaining about the
time taken between serves when she's the one that lies down on the
court after long points to catch her breath? Venus wasn't taking an
inordinate amount of time between points, a la Masha or Dani H., and
when she was it was on her own serve. It's all unfortunate because at
least for two sets, this was a really
high quality match. Too bad these storylines seem to be tainting the
match.

As for Sanchez, let your player play. Why he feels the need to insert himself into the match is beyond me. Bringing a stopwatch and blatantly timing a player's prep time is just bush league. Have some class, dude.

JJ better watch out because she is slowly starting to burn all that goodwill that she earned over the course of the past two years as being the entertaining, light hearted alternative to the seriousness of Justine, Serena, and Maria. On the TennisForums and the way classier TennisWorld, she's not gaining many fans, and in fact, people are starting to turn on her a bit.

Hmmm...a Serbian player gaining goodwill and becoming a fan favorite and then alienating fans with their on court behavior and the behavior of the people in their box. Sounds mighty familiar.

Comments

Oh to be JJ. She pulled a Sydney Bristow today, enduring immense tortuous pain before emerging victorious and sassy.

The 23-year-old Serb needed injections to numb the pain from a
toe-nail she split in Friday's quarter-final win over Vera Zvonareva.

"When I saw the needles they were going to use ten minutes before the game started, I went white - I hate needles.

"I
was screaming when the doctor put the needle in and I had to hold onto
one of the physios, but I had to do it to get through the game."

She came back to beat Venus, 67 75 62. She looks well on her way to getting her third title of the year and cementing her place as the year-end #1. She'll play Nads in the final tomorrow.

But, really, what's up with Venus? Check out this stat: JJ saved 14 of 16 break points. Now normally, standing alone, I would say this is more credit to JJ than a knock on Venus. But taking that stat as well as her USO performance against Serena into account (where she had numerous break and set points that she failed to convert) it does make me wonder. Has Venus lost that killer instinct?

UPDATED:

So I've just watched the match and boy, I didn't realize all the tense subplots. From what I could tell, here's the rundown:

During a changeover during the tiebreak, neither Venus or JJ gave way and we almost had another Spirlea incident.

Venus was visibly annoyed by the "coaching" that was going on between JJ and Ricardo Sanchez.

Sanchez was visibly timing Venus in between serves with a stopwatch.

JJ complained to the tournament director after the second set about Venus taking too much time between points.

Sanchez complained to the tournament director too.

Up 5-2 in the third, JJ takes an MTO for her toe before Venus' serve.

Both the US commentators and the Eurosport commentators were giving JJ and Ricardo shit for what was going on. I personally don't really care about what JJ did. It's annoying, but whatever, she has the right to complain about whatever she wants. I just roll my eyes.

But doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical for JJ to be complaining about the
time taken between serves when she's the one that lies down on the
court after long points to catch her breath? Venus wasn't taking an
inordinate amount of time between points, a la Masha or Dani H., and
when she was it was on her own serve. It's all unfortunate because at
least for two sets, this was a really
high quality match. Too bad these storylines seem to be tainting the
match.

As for Sanchez, let your player play. Why he feels the need to insert himself into the match is beyond me. Bringing a stopwatch and blatantly timing a player's prep time is just bush league. Have some class, dude.

JJ better watch out because she is slowly starting to burn all that goodwill that she earned over the course of the past two years as being the entertaining, light hearted alternative to the seriousness of Justine, Serena, and Maria. On the TennisForums and the way classier TennisWorld, she's not gaining many fans, and in fact, people are starting to turn on her a bit.

Hmmm...a Serbian player gaining goodwill and becoming a fan favorite and then alienating fans with their on court behavior and the behavior of the people in their box. Sounds mighty familiar.